Captain Virginia Witcombe remained perfectly still, and her voice was almost a whisper as she said, “You don’t talk to me like that. I don’t care who your father was or what happened to him. You never talk to me like that. Sergeant? Throw this smart-ass little punk out of my station in the next ten seconds or someone will have to arrest me for assaulting a Judge.”
Stavros took a step towards CJ. “Captain’s right. Get out, CJ. You and your new friends are not welcome in this town. The system we’ve got might not be perfect, but it’s fair and it works.”
CJ stood her ground. “Recorded crime in St. Christopher is up one hundred and sixty per cent from five years ago. In the same period, conviction rates have dropped twenty-nine per cent.” She sighed. “Stav, I drove by Mom’s place on the way into town. You know what I saw? Bars on the windows. They weren’t there when I left two years ago. Four houses down the street, the Johnstone place? Used to be a nice house. Now it’s just a pile of rubble and burnt timber.”
Stavros began, “That’s not—”
“I’m not done. Six weeks ago Cain Bluett stabbed Kirby Decosta twice in the chest on Main Street. Three sober, reliable eyewitnesses, plus CCTV footage from two angles. Where’s Cain Bluett right now? Drinking in Whelan’s bar. Why? Because he’s rich enough to hire the slickest law firm in the county, and his family has the political strength to bury the case. Dad might not have approved of Judges, but you know the drunk that ran him over was awaiting trial for DUI at the time, and wasn’t in jail because of overcrowding.
“You want me to go on? No, you don’t, because you both know that the system is not fair, and that it doesn’t work.” CJ turned from her brother to Captain Witcombe. “Judge Deacon and the others will be here early tomorrow morning. During this period of transition, we will work alongside you and your officers, but Judge Deacon has seniority. His word is final.”
Stavros looked away in disgust. “Jesus, CJ! Don’t—”
“Judge Leandros.”
“What?”
“Judge Leandros. Or just ‘Judge,’ if that’s simpler. That’s how you’ll address me, Sergeant.”
“Right. And does that apply when you’re off-duty? Because I can think of a few other names that might apply.”
CJ took a step back towards the door. “We’re never off-duty. Remember that.”
Captain Witcombe glanced at Stavros. “Looks like your baby sister outranks you, Sergeant.”
“Matter of fact, I outrank both of you,” CJ said.
JUDGE FRANCESCO DEACON slowed his Lawranger and pulled in towards the sidewalk on Main Street. The four Judges following pulled in behind him.
Deacon climbed off the bulky motorcycle and trudged back through the refrozen slush, glad of his helmet’s auto-tint visor that cut off most of the glare from the morning sun. As he passed his fellow Judges he held out his left hand, palm-down.
Judge Lela Rowain asked, “Sir...?”
“Stay put, Rowain. They’re cops.”
Judge Kurzweil said, “Cop car. Doesn’t mean there’s real cops inside it, sir.”
Deacon ignored that. In the academy, Kurzweil had always been a touch paranoid about police officers and lawyers. She’d always believed that they were going to cause the Judges more trouble than the citizens would.
The police car had signalled them to pull over when they’d turned onto Main Street. Ordinarily, Deacon would have ignored it, but this was their first day in St. Christopher. Ruffled feathers weren’t conducive to a smooth transition.
As Deacon passed Hayden Santana, the last Judge in line, the police car’s door opened and a fifty-year-old woman climbed out. She stepped towards him, breath misting as she shrugged herself into a padded jacket and zipped it up. “Cold one. Again.”
“We were on the way to see you, Captain Witcombe.”
“You know who I am?”
“I’ve been briefed.” Deacon extended his hand to her. “Francesco Deacon.”
As she shook his hand she asked, “So is that Frank, or Fran? Or...?”
“‘Judge Deacon’ is fine.” He glanced around.
A couple of locals had stopped to stare at the Judges. They were passed by a teenaged boy dragging a large gasoline canister on a battered sled. The teenager glanced at the locals, then looked across the street to see what had snagged their attention. He said, “Oh, great. Judges.” Then spotted Deacon glaring at him, forced a smile and added, “I mean, ‘Oh, great! Judges!’” before turning away and increasing his pace.
On the street, an old red pick-up truck was crawling past, its white-bearded driver pointedly staring straight ahead and very definitely not looking at either the police captain or the Judges.
“Suspicious,” Deacon said, nodding towards the pick-up. “You want to pull him over, Captain, or should I?”
Captain Witcombe stepped closer to Deacon. “Leave him be. That’s not guilt on his face. He’s in shock. His name’s Henderson Rotzler, seventy-one, lives on the west edge of town. Loud-mouth when he’s drunk, but aside from that he’s all right. And he’s the reason I’ve stopped you...
“Rotzler’s just brought his dogs to his brother’s place, now he’s heading back home. I’m going to meet him there, and I expect you’ll want to, too.”
Deacon turned back to face the captain. “So what’s happened?”
Witcombe hesitated. “Way I understand things, you’re here to work with us, yeah? You Judges are gonna replace the entire judicial system, but that can’t happen overnight, because there just aren’t enough of you. So for now, you work alongside us ordinary cops and lawyers. Tell me I’m right.”
Deacon nodded. “That’s right.” Before the team had left Boston, Judge Fargo had called him in. “Go easy on them,” he’d said. “Let them have their last moments in the sun before the Justice Department takes everything away from them.” Deacon had fully intended to comply with that suggestion, but now, with the captain looking haggard and more than a little worried, diplomacy seemed like a luxury. He told her, “Do us both a favour and skip to the end.”
Captain Witcombe slowly shook her head. “It’s not that simple, Judge. I spent a few hours last night reading through the new directives. I was hoping to find something that tells me you’re not allowed to do anything until I sign you in, something like that.”
“We’re Judges,” Deacon said. “We’re already signed in. Doesn’t matter where we are—we’ve already got all the authority and approval we need. So get to the point, Captain.”
She glanced behind her, towards the back of the red pick-up truck, then said, “Rotzler’s dogs woke him up last night. He said they went crazy, barking like there was an intruder. He went out to check it out... There was a body in the back yard of his home. Someone had dumped her over the wall. Female, mid-twenties. Stripped naked. Shot at least once, in the head. According to Rotzler, she was still warm when he found her.”
Deacon stared at the captain for a moment, unmoving, and suppressed a shiver that he knew wasn’t down to the cold.
Witcombe continued, “Judge Deacon, we haven’t formally identified the deceased, but we have every reason to believe that she is Charlotte-Jane Leandros.”
Judges: The Avalanche will be available from May 2018.
“YOU READY, ROOKIE?”
In years to come, Cassandra Anderson will be a living legend, Psi-Division’s most famous Judge. But for now it’s 2100, and a young Judge Anderson is fresh out of the Academy, the Eagle still gleaming on her shoulder. It’s time to put her training—and her judgement—to the test.
Tackling a love-obsessed telepathic killer at a Valentine’s Day parade, plunging into the depths of madness in a huge new psychiatric prison, and probing the boundaries of reality itself as she hunts a psychic virus to its roots, Cass will be forged in the fires of Justice, emerging as something extraordinary.
“Exactly what you’d want: smart, fast-moving sci-fi that’s filled with pulpy thrill power.”
Wait, What? Podcast
/>
www.abaddonbooks.com
You know about me. I’m Rico Dredd, Joe Dredd's big brother.
I'm the clone that went bad, that brought shame on Judge Fargo's legacy.
I was a Judge, the best the Academy of Law ever turned out. The very best. But after less than a year on the streets of Mega-City One, I was brought down, taken in. It was Little Joe who caught me; second-best Judge there’s been.
Broken, sentenced, stripped of office, I was shipped out to the brutal moon Titan, to do my twenty years' hard labour. Yeah, you know about Rico Dredd.
But do you know what really happened? Why I did it? What it was like, out there on the edge of space, doing time in the Bronze?
Truth is, mister, you know stomm about me.
www.abaddonbooks.com
Judge Dredd: Year Two Page 35